BTech student drowns in Ravi

HT Correspondent,
BATALA

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Updated: Jul 14, 2014 22:24 IST

A BTech student of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) drowned to death in Ravi river at Dharamkot Pattan village under Dera Baba Nanak police station on Sunday evening while his companion was saved by some army personnel deployed in the area.

According to available information, Pragun Aggarwal and his friend Aditya Chauhan, both residents of Amritsar, had gone to Dharamkot Pattan village on the Indo-Pakistan border to take a dip in Ravi on Sunday evening.

They were standing on the wooden logs of a pontoon bridge, which were removed by the PWD department from the river and kept along its bank, when Pragun suddenly slipped into the river.

Aditya also jumped in the river and tried to save his friend but due to heavy currents of water both of them started drowning in the river. Listening to their cries for help, some jawans of the Bihar regiment of the army jumped into the river to save them, but they could only save Aditya while Pragun got drowned in the river.

After getting information about the incident, a team of Dera Baba Nanak police, led by ASI Daljeet Singh, rushed to the spot and started a massive search operation with the help of boats and flood lights to trace Pragun, but they could not succeed in their efforts due to darkness. It was only in the morning that the body of the deceased could be recovered from the river.

The army jawans said that when the two youths had reached near the river on Sunday evening, they had asked them about the purpose of their visit. The boys had said that they had just come there to beat the heat.

Pragun was a resident of Basant Avenue in Amritsar while Aditya Chauhan resides in Income Tax colony. An eyewitness Jashandeep, a resident of Dera Baba Nanak, said that he was returning from Dharamkot Randhawa village and was waiting for a boat on the other side of the Ravi when the incident occurred. He said that initially he felt that the boys had jumped into the river themselves but within minutes, he saw both of them crying for help.

Meanwhile, the police have registered a case in this connection and sent the body of the deceased to civil hospital for post-mortem.